


one to make your heart remember me

by strikinglight



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Long-Distance Friendship, Love Confessions, M/M, Mixtape, Multimedia, leo is pure of heart but also an absolute mess, long loaded hugs and maybe a hand-touch
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-22
Updated: 2016-12-22
Packaged: 2018-09-11 04:12:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,252
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8953246
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/strikinglight/pseuds/strikinglight
Summary: Phichit told him once that you could tell from someone’s voice if they were smiling on the phone. Leo hadn’t believed it until one night he found himself leaning against the window of his room with his phone to his ear, counting the stars above the skyline and listening to Guanghong describe the fierce way the sun was burning itself out over the bay. 
Or: It takes Leo five songs to fall in love with him, and one more to say so.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mayerwien](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mayerwien/gifts).



> I don't know where the idea that Leo de la Iglesia's music taste is cheesy as all hell came from. Or maybe it's just that he has a lot of feelings. 
> 
> JSYK, the song titles at the beginning of each section click through to YouTube.
> 
> Title from the last number on the list, "I Want to Write You a Song" by the inimitable One Direction.
> 
> I wrote this for [mayerwien](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mayerwien), my partner in mixtape crime. Merry Christmas, b. You are the music in me (nananana, nananana, yeaaah).

**[1\. Here Comes the Sun – The Beatles](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WlyPfBrZr3s) **

 

Leo de la Iglesia doesn’t know when he became the kid who was always on his phone.

To tell the truth, he only started noticing it after it became something to remark upon—something for classmates to observe, however idly, during the five-minute walk from room to room, or for teachers to point out when they found him leaning against his locker in the early morning before class. Even his rinkmates don’t spare him about it, for all that they too spend half their lives on Instagram. _Who are you texting, Leo? Got a girl, Leo? What’re you smiling at, Leo?_

“My friend,” is the answer he’s been giving on and off for a while now. It’s an easy answer that doesn’t invite a lot of follow-up questions. Never mind that it’s wrong—or not completely right, at least, though he isn’t sure when _friend_ stopped being enough, or what the correct term now is.

He’s considered _best friend,_ and thought maybe. Maybe not. Some people have best friends they see— _see_ meaning have the chance to be physically present with, in the physical world, in the flesh—every day. Possibly every other day, or at least a couple of times a week. Most people have best friends they see more times a year than there are fingers on their hands—on both hands, not just one.

Leo wonders sometimes if that alone would be enough to invalidate what he feels as best-friendness. It seems weird a lot of the time to call the boy he met at Junior Worlds two years ago his best friend just because they’d added each other on Facebook to exchange event photos, started talking, and never quite stopped. But in the months that have passed since then Guanghong Ji has watched him study for the SATs, seen his dog give birth, met his family, guested at his birthday dinners. They take each other into the bathroom while they’re brushing their teeth so they can keep talking. That Guanghong’s done all these things in his capacity as a slightly pixellated image on Leo’s phone seems a comparatively minor detail.

He’s the first person Leo talks to when he gets up most mornings, the last one he says good night to on nights that the sleepiness doesn’t overtake him and make him send a few lines of keysmash instead. The point being that it’s not a day if they don’t talk; there’s just not enough to smile about.

All this must, he thinks, count for something.

 

* * *

  

**[2\. Wonderful Unknown – Ingrid Michaelson](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qyfrwf232FI) **

 

“You didn’t tell me,” Leo says, addressing his laptop in what he hopes is a low, threatening tone of voice, “that you were moving up this year.”

If what he hears in his own ears is any indication, he’s about as far from low and threatening as he and Guanghong are from each other right now. Less gangster, more bunny being strangled. He blames it on the invisible vise squeezing his chest, the persistent ache that’s gripped him to suffocating and not let up since the assignments for this year’s Grand Prix had dropped a grand total of five minutes ago.

Guanghong’s face shines out at him from the screen, glowing and unrepentant, the face of someone who’s already won every medal there is to win. Leo’s a thousand percent convinced it’s not just the glare—there’s something about that look that makes the back of his neck heat and the chest pains intensify, if that’s at all possible.

“I wanted to surprise you.” He beams. “But I guess the draw got us both.”

Leo whines and buries his face in his hands, peeking out from between the gaps in his fingers. Guanghong Ji cannot be his friend. If he were a real friend he would have spared Leo the thought of another lonely year in the senior division without him. He could have dropped a hint at least, a “see you in October.” Leo knows he would have picked up on it, honest to God. But, granted, neither of them could have anticipated seeing their names side by side on that list not once but twice. Chicago in October. Beijing in November.

“You’re going to kill me,” Leo groans, closes his eyes and presses the heels of his palms against them until he sees the colored spots bloom behind his eyelids like so many unfamiliar stars. “I won’t even make it to the first cup.”

He hears Guanghong chuckle, and he swears the sound makes the stars he sees burn even brighter. “You have to. I’ve got to beat you at least once.”

 

* * *

**[3\. All of the Stars – Ed Sheeran](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkqVm5aiC28) **

 

Leo de la Iglesia doesn’t think himself particularly good with numbers.

He had been average at math in high school, with a consistent C-plus average, B if it was geometry. He doesn’t add up his scores in his head in real time like he knows other skaters do. But there’s one set of numbers he can crunch almost obsessively: seven thousand and fifty two miles from Chicago to Shanghai means eleven thousand three hundred and forty-nine kilometers, means fourteen hours of time difference, means almost fifteen hours of travel time by plane.

Add to that some simple arithmetic he’s been doing every night since receiving the competition dates for Skate America. He measures the time in sleeps, like a kid counting down to a field trip. Each day, minus one. Minus one. Minus one.

It has the unfortunate and ironic side effect of keeping him awake at night, but that’s a minor detail. He tells himself he’d be awake anyway, to catch Guanghong on the way from school to the rink. Most days Leo keeps him company on the train. Sometimes Guanghong calls him from the locker room, and they talk while he does his stretches.

“I forgot to tell you this morning, I had a funny dream about you last night.” It’s four-thirty in the afternoon in Shanghai. Leo’s bedside clock reads two-thirty AM, but they’ve decided it’s a call day. “You almost died.”

“How is that funny?” He knows Guanghong means funny-weird rather than funny-haha, but he isn’t sure if it’s less or more funny-weird now that he also knows Guanghong has these action-movie dreams with some frequency. Sometimes there are car chases. Almost all of them end with a shootout. “Was that before or after the car chase?”

“No car chase this time,” Guanghong tells him, matter-of-factly. “We were on foot going up some fire escape. When we hit the roof we found the Bad Guy there with a gun. I took the bullet for you, though, so you were okay.”

One of the things Leo’s noticed about these dreams of Guanghong’s is that it’s always all for one and one for all. They either make it out together, or they go down together. In none of them does one have to drag the other’s body through the streets of the shadowy, nameless city in Guanghong’s mind-theater, only to have him die in his arms in an alley just as it starts to rain. Leo thinks he can appreciate that, but he also wonders why his friend can’t have what are, by any ordinary person’s definition, _nice dreams._ Dreams where nothing bad happens, where they just take walks and watch the sunset or the stars, maybe hold hands. Where they know things it would be way too hard to say aloud in real life.

Leo’s had dreams like that, more than once—far more than just once, if he’s being honest—but even that is hard to say. Instead he says, as a kind of confession, “I don’t have many dreams lately.”

“That’s because you don’t sleep.” Guanghong’s pout is somehow audible from the other end of the line; Leo smiles and stifles a yawn. “I’m getting worried about you, you know.”

“Maybe I’m just looking forward to sharing the ice with you.” This is more candid than he’s usually brave enough to be, most days, but they’ve agreed that he’s only partially responsible for anything silly that he might say past midnight, Chicago time.

Phichit told him once that you could tell from someone’s voice if they were smiling on the phone. Leo hadn’t believed it until one night he found himself leaning against the window of his room with his phone to his ear, counting the stars above the skyline and listening to Guanghong describe the fierce way the sun was burning itself out over the bay. Three-thirty Chicago, five-thirty Shanghai. Different colors, same sky. He’d fallen asleep a little before sunrise—had dreamed about fire, and about being warm.

“If you sleep,” Guanghong says, “the thing you’re waiting for will come faster.”

Guanghong’s always in bed before midnight Shanghai time. Leo’s tempted to ask, _Is that what you do?_

 

* * *

  

**[4\. Send It Up – Vertical Horizon](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvS7H634vRM) **

 

“You should have offered to take him to the airport,” Phichit says, after.

Maybe he should have, Leo agrees, even if he hesitates to make it real by saying it aloud. Maybe he should have, but he didn’t. Now Guanghong’s on a plane, winging his way back to China. He, meanwhile, is taking Phichit to the car rental place just outside of town, because only Phichit would insist on driving four hours out to Detroit alone for the weekend in the thick of competition season.

“He wouldn’t have said yes.”

“I think he might have.” He’s holding Leo’s phone and the aux cord bunched up in one hand, but he’s not too deep in Leo’s music library to shoot him a knowing smile. Which the latter ignores, of course, in favor of keeping both eyes on the road where they belong. “You’re forgetting how he was all over you yesterday.”

Yesterday Guanghong had thrown his arms around Leo as they stepped down from the podium together, and without thinking Leo had seized him around the waist and held him close. The moment is documented in careful detail—too careful, Leo thinks, too meticulous—on Phichit’s phone. The precise angle of those arms when they had locked into place around his neck. Leo’s eyes, wide and bewildered, later scrunched shut in laughter that he remembers had taken all the breath out of his body. Otabek Altin standing to one side, gaze fixed on something out of frame as if to underscore to Leo that he wouldn’t be waiting to catch him should his heart spontaneously decide to stop beating.

He hasn’t forgotten. The truth is that he hasn’t stopped thinking about it, that he can’t think about his first-ever gold medal without thinking about how heavy it had felt hanging beside his heart, Guanghong’s weight pressing it close against his skin.

This is a crazy thought, but Leo wonders if maybe he should have kissed him. That’s what you do in music videos when you hear the song swell and crest like a wave, when the confetti rains down from the ceiling in sparkly comet-trails, but they aren’t a music video, and it doesn’t seem like a good idea to kiss people you’re not sure want to kiss you back.

(That confetti had gotten everywhere, he remembers. Clinging to their hair, their sleeves. They had tried to help each other brush it off as soon as they’d pulled back, failed, laughed instead. Laughed and laughed.)

“What do you think you have to lose if you ask, Leoncito?”

Phichit has this crazy way of saying things, as if everything is certain, as if everything is all right. Phichit does some crazy things without thinking twice about them, trusting always in a world he hasn’t fully seen—but then again, he’s not carrying a torch for his long-distance best friend. So he can’t know what Leo has to lose; how could he know it?

“Everything?” It’s a big word, but it’s the only way he knows how to name what he’s afraid of. Leo can see now how he’s gotten used to things as they are. It’s been enough of a struggle, teaching himself how to stand up against one kind of distance.

“Less than you think,” Phichit says. He’s looking ahead, watching the clouds, face gone soft and inscrutable. “You’re best friends, aren’t you?”

It sounds so simple to hear it said aloud. So kindergarten. This is exactly the sort of thing that would have been easy in kindergarten, something to ask and declare. The thing is, Leo wants to say, after you’ve grown up, how do you know what you are? And what if you’re wrong?

He settles instead for a question he has some hope of getting a straight answer for. “What do _you_ think I should do?”

“Whatever makes you feel okay.” Phichit reaches across and squeezes his hand. That gesture, at least, is simple. Not so delicate, impossible to misread. “Pray about it. Take it to church.”

Leo sighs. He wants to tell himself that he believes, and yet—

“I do,” he says, softly, to the steering wheel. “Every Sunday.”

 

* * *

 

**[5\. One Sweet Love – Sara Bareilles](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rAq2VGnMX6Q) **

 

When Leo sees him again it changes even the way he breathes.

Even from the other side of the terminal, he’s unmistakable—the way he stands, the familiar soft mop of his hair. He’s shifting restlessly from foot to foot as he waits with his head bent down toward his phone, but Leo doesn’t even need to call his name. Almost on cue, he raises his head.

He’s here. He didn’t have to be—it’s not as if Leo’s coming to his hometown. But he’s here, and when he finally looks up his smile says _There you are._

Leo knows it’s been less than a month since Chicago and the gold medal. He knows it’s more than a little ridiculous to want to leave his luggage behind for his coach to pick up for him and break into a run, fling himself across those last few feet of tiled floor at Guanghong like a child coming home, so he doesn’t quite. Instead he pulls up slowly, standing his suitcase upright so he can wipe his sweaty palms down on the legs of his pants.

“Can I hug you? Is that okay?”

He’s so embarrassed by the voice he hears in his own ears, high and croaky, nearly trembling. But Guanghong’s smiling, so maybe it doesn’t matter. “What’s wrong? You look a little feverish.”

“I’m just—” He cracks a grin, one hand scuffing the hair at the back of his head, at a loss for any other way to say how much he’s been waiting for this. “I’m so happy I’m here.”

When Guanghong opens his arms, Leo’s arms lock around his waist and lift him a few inches off the floor and spin him around a little bit, and when they’ve made the full circle they do a little dance in place, foot to foot, laughing. It’s the kind of thing that happens in airports all the time. Maybe it’s not even something to look twice at, but Leo finds it’s made him brave—almost brave enough to say it. Almost.

 

* * *

 

**[6\. I Want to Write You a Song – One Direction](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAYoaLjAwWk) **

 

Guanghong offers to treat him to jianbing, after.

They walk out to the park to take in the watery moonlight as it spills down cool and forgiving onto their faces, sit down together on an empty bench too wide for just two boys. They sit close on one end of it, Guanghong leaning to one side to rest the point of his shoulder on Leo’s upper arm.

Guanghong takes big bites that scatter the crumbs in trails around his mouth. Leo swipes at them with the edge of his sleeve, tells himself that the pink bloom in his friend’s cheeks and the warmth he feels creeping down from his face to his neck are natural as the weather. They’re deep into autumn now, and it’s getting cold.

The day’s disappointing scores feel like nothing compared to the awareness that they’ll be flying out in the morning—that this is the last little pocket of uninterrupted in-the-flesh time they’ll have together for who knows how long. That itself is nothing new; distance should be easy by now, but Leo finds that all of a sudden it’s a little too hard to swallow. Guanghong gets up to buy a bottle of water before he can open his mouth.

“I think this was too much fun,” he says, after Leo’s finished drinking and screwed the cap back on. “When can I see you again?”

 _This_ could be anything. _This_ could be the Cup of China, could be Guanghong’s first season in the senior division, could be the two of them eating in a park in an unfamiliar city. Could be the two of them, whatever they are, doing whatever it is they do that it’s been so hard to find words for. Leo examines the toes of his shoes and pretends he’s not hearing Phichit in his head again: _Why don’t you just ask?_

It’s fourteen hours from Chicago to Beijing. He’d been working on the music for at least half of it, adding songs, deleting songs, switching them around. Seeing Guanghong at the arrivals terminal three days ago—has it really only been three days?—had made him nearly brave enough to give it away then. Nearly. It turns out that he needs the thought of yet another departure to give him that one last push.

“I didn’t want to go home before giving you this.” The flash-disk feels fragile, flimsy and small as he fishes it out of his pocket and lays it in the center of Guanghong’s palm, an unremarkable rectangle of orange and white plastic you wouldn’t look twice at if you didn’t know what was in it. “I, uh. I put it together on the plane here. For you.”

“What’s this?”

He must already know. Maybe he’s asking to be sure. Leo nearly answers _My soul,_ but he stops himself. _Don’t be dramatic, Leo._ This is enough of a grand gesture to be embarrassing as it is. It would be funny if it were anyone else.

“It’s a mixtape,” he says. “Maybe you’ve heard of them. Weird American thing—or at least they were, but everyone makes them now, not just us.” Guanghong nods his head but doesn’t answer and he finds too late that he can’t stop talking, running his mouth, anything to fill in the gaps. “I hope you like it. The songs are a little quieter than you go for usually, I know, but maybe they’ll remind you of me, and then they won’t bore you so much. Maybe. I mean, you know better than anyone now, I think, what music means to me—”

 _I wonder if you know what_ you _mean to me, though._

Leo’s eyes are on the ground and he can’t look at him. But Guanghong’s fingertips come to rest against the back of his hand, and there’s a smile in his voice that Leo suddenly finds he _can_ hear—a particular note that he didn’t know he was listening for until he found it on the other side of all the noise. Like a song he knows without having to guess.

“Do you have it on your phone?” he asks. “Can we listen together?”

At last, _at last,_ an easy question. Leo smiles, already reaching for the pair of earphones coiled in his back pocket.

“Let’s start at the beginning.”


End file.
